mentaries" (now no longer extant) which were no doubt intended to rival those of the author of the Gallic War. After an expedition against the Franks in the autumn of 357 he wintered for the first time at Paris, which became a favourite abode of his. He gives a well-known description of his φίλη Λουκετία in the Misopogon (pp. 340 seq.). His military successes endeared him to both troops and people. His internal government, particularly as lightening public burdens, was equally popular. He had specially to contend with the avarice of Florentius, the praetorian prefect, who desired to increase the capitatio, and who, on Julian's refusal to sign the indiction, complained of him to Constantius (Amm. xvii. 3, 2, and 5, in 357). Constantius, while reproving him for discrediting his officer, left him a practically free hand, and the tax, which on his entering Gaul was 25 aurei a head, had been reduced to 7 when he left (Amm. xvi. 5, 24; cf. xvii. 3, 6).
His ambition was to imitate Marcus Aurelius as a philosopher upon the throne, and Alexander the Great as a model in warfare (ad Themist. p. 253). His table was very plainly furnished, and he refused all the luxuries which Constantius had written down for him as proper for a Caesar's board (Amm. xvi. 5, 3). His bed was a mat and a rug of skins, from which he rose at midnight, and, after secret prayer to Mercury, addressed himself first to public business and then to literature. He studied philosophy first, then poetry, rhetoric, and history, making himself also fairly proficient in Latin. His chamber was ordinarily never warmed; and one very cold night, at Paris, he was nearly suffocated by some charcoal in a brazier, but erroneously attributed it to the dampness of the room (Misopogon, p. 341). All this attracted the people, but was not agreeable to many of the courtiers. Julian knew that he was surrounded by disaffected officials and other spies upon his conduct, and continued to conceal his religious sentiments, and to act cautiously towards his cousin. During his administration of Gaul he produced another panegyric upon Constantius, and one upon Eusebia, though the exact occasion of neither can be determined (Or. 2 and 3). In these orations Julian, though indulging to the full in classical parallels and illustrations, takes care to hide his change of religion. He speaks even of his prayers to God for Constantius, naturally indeed and not in a canting way (Or. 3, p. 118 D). Nor did he hesitate to join with him in issuing a law denouncing a capital penalty against those who sacrifice to or worship idols (Cod. Theod. xvi. 10, 6, Apr. 356), in repressing magic and all kinds of divination with very severe edicts (ib. ix. 16, 4–6, in 357 and 358), in punishing renegade Christians who had become Jews (ib. xvi. 8, 7), and in granting new privileges to the church and clergy, and regulating those already given (ib. xvi. 2, 13–16; the last as late as Mar. 361). To have hinted at dislike to any of these measures would, indeed, have aroused at once the strongest suspicions. One of the edicts against magic, which threatens torture for every kind of divination, seems almost personally directed against Julian (Cod. Theod. ix. 16, 6, dated July 5, 358, from Ariminum). The effect upon his conscience of condemning as a public officer what he was secretly practising must have been hardening and demoralizing. For Julian was not without thought on such subjects. At another time he declared he would rather die than sign the oppressive edict brought him by Florentius (Amm. Xvii. 3, 2); and in his later famous decree against Christian professors he writes vehemently of the wickedness of thinking one thing and teaching another (Ep. 42).
In Apr. 360 Constantius ordered the flower of the Gallic auxiliaries to be sent to aid him in his expedition against the Persians (Amm. xx. 4). This request produced great irritation among men who had enlisted on the understanding that they were not to be required to cross the Alps—an irritation fomented no doubt by the friends of Julian, particularly, it is said, by Oribasius (Eunap. Vita Oribasii, p. 104). The troops surrounded the palace at Paris and demanded that their favourite should take the title of Augustus (ad Ath. p. 284; Amm. xx. 4, 14). Julian, according to his own account, was quite unprepared for such a step, and would not accede till Jupiter had given him a sign from heaven. This sign was no doubt the vision of the Genius of the Empire, who declared that he had long been waiting on his threshold and was now unwilling to be turned away from it. Yet he warned him (so Julian told his intimates) that his residence with him would in no case be for long (Amm. xx. 5, 10; cf. Lib. ad Jul. cos. p. 386). We have no reason, however, to think that Julian had any real hesitation, except as to the opportuneness of the moment. When he came down to address the troops, he still appeared reluctant, but the enthusiasm of the soldiers would take no denial, and he was raised in Gallic fashion upon a shield, and hastily crowned with a gold chain which a dragoon (draconarius) tore from his own accoutrements. He promised the accustomed donative (Amm. xx. 4, 18), which the friends of Constantius, it would seem, secretly tried to outdo by bribes (ad Ath. p. 285 A). The discovery of their intrigue only raised the popular enthusiasm to a higher pitch, and Julian felt strong enough to treat with his cousin. He dispatched an embassy with a letter declining to send the Gallic troops, who (he declared) positively refused to go, and could not be spared with safety; but he offered some small corps of barbarian auxiliaries. He related the action of the army in proclaiming him Augustus, but said nothing of his own wish to bear the title. As a compromise he proposed that Constantius should still appoint the praetorian prefect, the chief governor of that quarter of the empire, but that all lesser offices should be under his own administration (ib. D, and for particulars, Amm. xx. 8, 5–17), who gives the substance of the letter at length). But to these public and open requests he added a threatening and bitter private missive, which had the effect, whether intentionally or not, of rendering his negotiations abortive (Amm. l.c.).
Such a state of things could only end in war, but neither party was in a hurry to precipitate it. In Vienne Julian celebrated the fifth
